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Montreal’s video game orchestra ushers in all generations

Jonathan Dagenais is the conductor of Montreal's L'Orchestre de Jeux Video, a group that adapts the tunes and melodies of video games for an orchestra in Montreal, the capital of Canada's video-game industry (Pierre Chasse)

MONTREAL — Quebecers take their video games seriously, so it seems only natural that the capital of Canada’s gaming industry would be the place to translate the sounds, songs and melodies of a generation into serious music.

Orchestral music, that is.

Professional orchestras have toured the tunes of Zelda, Street Fighter and other video games across North America. But Quebec's largest city is one of the few to have its own dedicated video-game orchestra made up of serious musicians whose passion puts them in front of sheet music for hours on end — not just TV screens.

L’Orchestre de Jeux Video (“The Video Game Orchestra”) was launched in 2008 by a group of musical gamers around Montreal. Word has continued to spread about their work, as have the crowds and the opportunities.

Like in other cities to feature classical music ensembles playing pieces inspired by video games, the movement is earning credit for ushering a new generation into the audiences and helping keep concert halls full, said Jonathan Dagenais, the orchestra’s conductor.

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That’s because there is something for everyone in the group’s musical offering. Adults can be nostalgic in concerts like the recent one dedicated to the games of the Nintendo 64 console or another that pitted the songs of PlayStation games against those of Xbox. For other concerts, the music is selected thematically and can span the generations.

“The ambience, the atmosphere is not like in a classical concert show. Sometimes it's more like a rock show because everyone is so hyped in the audience by the music that we're doing,” Dagenais said.

It’s not unusual to have oooh’s, aaah’s or applause in the middle of a performance. Shushing is rare.

The classical adaptation of products initially designed for children's’ amusement is part of the evolution of video games. As the audience grows and matures, so too does the creative process, which means that different art forms are increasingly being drawn together.

Child of Light, a Montreal production from the French gaming giant Ubisoft, featured not only graphics that looked like they were painted onto the screen, but music that was composed and performed by Montreal singer-songwriter Coeur de Pirate and creative input from the masterminds at Cirque du Soleil.

“It's becoming more and more like cinema — a form of art in itself,” said Dagenais. “So that's why it's becoming more mainstream, more accepted and seen less as a childish thing.”

It's also more proof of the clout, reach and importance of the gaming industry.

According to the Quebec government, Montreal is the world’s fifth largest hub for the video game industry.

The city is home to 139 companies, employed more than 10,000 full-time employees and generated $1.14-billion in expenditures in 2015, according to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada. Many companies are lured by generous tax credits from the provincial government.

For the economic contribution, Montreal is paying homage to the works that have been created in this city when it celebrates its 375th anniversary in 2017. The Orchestre metropolitan and Montreal composer Maxime Goulet — himself the author of some 25 video game soundtracks — were commissioned to prepare and perform a multimedia show that will feature music from some of the games that have been developed and produced in the city, such as Spiderman and Assassin's Creed.

That pride of ownership and support for local productions may have something to do with the success of the Montreal video-game orchestra that Dagenais has led for almost a year now.

The orchestra was created in 2008 as a bit of a gamble, said co-founder Sebastien Wall-Lacelle. They were barely two dozen musicians in the group. No one was sure what type of reception to expect.

Some eight years later, the orchestra counts 55 musicians ranging in age from music students in their 20s to a 52-year-old trumpet player. Wall-Lacelle pays his bills as a college physics teacher. Another member is a doctor.

New opportunities keep arising. The orchestra is currently in talks with a Quebec video game company about providing the musical score for an upcoming project. The orchestra also recently recorded a track for “Harmony of a Champion,” an album paying tribute to the 20th anniversary of the red and green versions of Pokemon, which were released in 1996.

The venues are growing larger as well. The orchestra’s usual hall seats about 700 people and ensured that their concerts would run for two days. But the next concert, in February 2017, will be the orchestra’s largest and most important to date.

The venue will be the city’s premier concert hall, Maison symphonique, which has a capacity of more than 2,000 people. The musical line up will feature a broader “best-of” selection, said Dagenais.

Already more than 400 tickets have been sold to an audience that includes music lovers, hard-core gaming aficionados and the Comic-Con types, but also those who might seem unlikely ever to step into a concert hall. And that latter group is the most important type.

“It’s one of the biggest trends of the orchestra,” the conductor said. “Yes, we play video-game music that we arrange and everything, but we have people in the audience that would never go to a classical concert if it was not for us.”

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